


After All The Time

by mggislife2789



Category: Criminal Minds, Spencer Reid - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Past Relationship(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-07
Updated: 2017-02-07
Packaged: 2018-09-22 14:01:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9610592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mggislife2789/pseuds/mggislife2789
Summary: Disclaimer: I don't own any of these characters or their original stories. This is only for fun. It's where my brain goes after the credits roll. No copyright intended. Better safe than sorry ;)





	

It felt like yesterday. Why did it still feel like yesterday? 

What went wrong?

After three years, he still couldn’t pass her apartment or anywhere that they frequented together without spending a few moments thinking about her. In the years since they’d broken up, he’d had an entire relationship. He’d liked her - a lot, but he couldn’t shake Y/N from his mind and it had led to the demise of that relationship. 

Why had his and Y/N’s relationship even ended? He could barely remember, which meant it had to be something stupid. They broke up in October, and here he was, at the exact same time, grabbing his coffee at the cafe where they first met. As he walked in to grab the same thing he did every day, he could practically see her sitting in the chair, her purple peacoat hugging her small frame. Turning around from the counter, he took a sip of his coffee and remembered her shining smile when she’d first looked at him. It was then that he’d fallen in love with her. He’d never believed in love at first sight before, but when he met her that all changed.

A small tear formed at the corner of his eye as he took another sip of coffee, watching the table where she used to sit as her visage disappeared before his eyes. It wouldn’t be long before he thought of her again - he just knew it. She was permanently ingrained in his memory.

——

Despite it being a rare day off, he couldn’t sit still, so after he picked up his coffee, he went back to his apartment, picked up his clothes and walked down to the laundromat. His had broken and his building didn’t have one. Very occasionally, he and Y/N had gone to that laundromat, making a joke out of the amount of clothes she had to clean. He had next to nothing - he wore the same crap all the time. 

As he began to throw in his laundry, he remembered the way her eyes would follow the bubbles in the machine. She’d make a game out of it, laughing as her head got all wobbly. Once he got to the bottom of the container of clothes, he saw something he didn’t expect - one of her socks. Even after all these years, he was still finding pieces of her all the time. How had a sock gone unnoticed until now? If she were here, she probably would’ve claimed it was the work of the invisible sock monster that was always taking just one out of the pair to the point where she didn’t even bother to match them anymore. 

After filling up the washing machine, he sat back, mimicking the movement she normally made with her head. Today was a bad day. He couldn’t do a damn thing without it reminding him of her. Instead of sitting there drowning in thoughts of her while his clothes drowned in the machine, he decided to set the alarm on his phone to just before the machine was done with his clothes. At least in his dreams, there was a chance that he wouldn’t see her face.

He’d never been a follower of any particular region, but if God existed in any form, Spencer wanted to thank him. For a solid 40 minutes, his mind went blank. But that all went away as soon as he pulled the clothes out of the washer and came across her sock again. Again, he set his alarm and fell asleep, freeing his mind. If only he could do the same during his waking hours nearly three years after the fact.

——

Finally, his clothes were dried and done, so he put them back in his bag and took them home, quickly returning them to his drawer and closet. 

He was normally a quick meal kind of guy, and maybe it was his loneliness talking, but tonight he wanted a home-cooked meal, so he pulled out a box of pasta and some sauce he’d made and frozen. The container was one of Y/N’s, that she’d left when they’d broken up. The first time she’d brought over some of her own homemade sauce, she used that container. He could tell because there was still a faint marker stain on it. In particular, he still remembered when she’d stuck her finger in the sauce and wiped it on his nose, which caused him to throw flour at her, which then turned into an all out food fight in the middle of the kitchen.

After dinner, he couldn’t seem to sit still, pacing the floor of his apartment until he just couldn’t take it anymore, grabbing his coat and going out for a long walk. Just like before in the laundromat, he attempted to allow his mind to go blank. For quite a few minutes, he thought of nothing, until he realized that his feet had brought him within blocks of Y/N’s new apartment.

Last he knew, she was living alone, still working as a teacher at the local high school. When he had been dating his last ex-girlfriend, she’d been dating someone as well, but through the grapevine, he’d heard that he’d cheated on her, so for the last year or so she had been on her own. 

These last three years had been hell and he was still barely over her. Should he turn right, go home, and wait for this bad day to pass? Or should he turn left, walk another couple blocks and knock on her door?

Looking down, his feet shuffled in place. He was too close.


End file.
